Founder of Huddlehumans, Viaano Spruyt, went down to Singapore Management University (SMU) over the weekend to deliver his thoughts regarding the importance of mental well-being in workplaces.

He shares the following when asked to define what well-being in the workplace meant to him:

“When we talk about well-being, obviously, it’s a two-way-street here – the organisation and the individual. But let’s focus more on the personal aspect today as is the theme of the event. We first have to understand what well-being even is.

Well-being is a state of happiness, good health, and that we are functioning well: physically, mentally, emotionally etc.

However, when we talk about wellbeing at work, the workplace, it really zooms in to how workers such as you and I feel about ourselves at work or with our work. Am I happy, satisfied, overwhelmed, or dejected? And there can be many various factors that come to play that decides this overall ‘state’ we are in; some that would relevant here would be your job role – how you feel about your day to day work, expectations of you, stress levels, or even working environment such as relationships with co-workers. Broadly speaking, all this affects your overall health and happiness in relation to your work.

Wellbeing does not mean that you never experience feelings or situations that you find difficult, but it does mean that you feel you can cope with tough times. And I guess that is why we are all here today, to discover some useful strategies to cope with the volatility of the era that we currently find ourselves in.

It is really crucial here to understand that ‘wellbeing’ or ‘being-well’ is something that you do, rather than something you are.”